Spring Flowering Plants attractive to Bees

Spring flowering plants attractive to bees

There are a good selection of spring flowering plants attractive to bees which will bloom from late winter through to spring. As the bees emerge, they are looking for food, so growing some of these plants in your garden will help the bee population.

Bees are a critical part of the growing cycle. When bees travel around the garden they pollinate flowers by the transfer of pollen from the male parts of a flower to the female parts of a flower of the same species, which results in fertilization of plant ovaries and the production of seeds. The best and busiest of pollinators are bees, and so they are very important. All wildlife is drawn into a garden if it provides food, shelter, water or all of these. Providing the bees with nectar, especially early flowering plants, will enhance your garden rating in the bee world.

Above in the images are Bluebells (left) which look lovely in a natural setting and these are English bluebells Hyacinthoides non-scripta as compared with the Spanish bluebells, which may look similar but are an invasive non native species. Centre image is the flowering red current which comes into bloom in February and March and far right, the familiar forget me not, latin name Myosotis. All of these plants are easy to grow, in the case of forget me nots, too easy as they are prolific self seeds. It is important to thin them out which is easily done but they need to be checked.

Spring flowering plants high on the bees hit lists are:

Hellebores flowering from December until spring a good source of early nectar